Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in most European countries. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to the EU market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.

I don't remember Russia being in the EU

"Bleh, i don't even know what i'm arguing for. What a stupid rant. Disregard what i wrote." - Loz"Every time is gyros time" - Stalinista

MIA has some new docs from the Prague Spring. Including the CP "Action Program". And interesting mix of orthodox communism and liberalism. I mean parts of it read like your typical state Brezhnevism out of Leninist.biz, while the other parts are reform liberalism.

b) But is an offensive, and an offensive along the whole front at that, permissible at all under the conditions of NEP?

Some think that an offensive is incompatible with NEP—that NEP is essentially a retreat, that, since the retreat has ended, NEP must be abolished. That is non-sense, of course. It is nonsense that emanates either from the Trotskyists, who have never understood anything about Leninism and who think of "abolishing" NEP "in a trice," or from the Right opportunists, who have also never understood Leninism, and think that by chattering about the "the threat to abolish NEP", they can manage to secure abandonment of the offensive. If NEP was nothing but a retreat, Lenin would not have said at the Eleventh Congress of the Party, when we were implementing NEP with the utmost consistency, that "the retreat has ended." When Lenin said that the retreat had ended, did he not also say that we were thinking of carrying out NEP "in earnest and for a long time"? It is sufficient to put this question to understand the utter absurdity of the talk about NEP being incompatible with an offensive. In point of fact, NEP does not merely presuppose a retreat and permission for the revival of private trade, permission for the revival of capitalism while ensuring the regulating role of the state (the initial stage of NEP). In point of fact, NEP also presupposes at a certain stage of development, the offensive of socialism against the capitalist elements, the restriction of the field of activity of private trade, the relative and absolute diminution of capitalism, the increasing preponderance of the socialised sector over the non-socialised sector, the victory of socialism over capitalism (the present stage of NEP). NEP was introduced to ensure the victory of socialism over the capitalist elements. In passing to the offensive along the whole front, we do not yet abolish NEP for private trade and the capitalist elements still remain, "free" trade still remains—but we are certainly abolishing the initial stage of NEP, while developing its next stage, the present stage, which is the last stage of NEP.

Here is what Lenin said in 1922, a year after NEP was introduced: "We are now retreating, going back as it were; but we are doing this in order, by retreating first, afterwards to take a run and make a more powerful leap forward. It was on this condition alone that we retreated in pursuing our New Economic Policy. We do not yet know where and how we must now regroup, adapt and reorganise our forces in order to start a most persistent advance after our retreat. In order to carry out all these operations in proper order we must, as the proverb says, measure not ten times, but a hundred times before we decide." (Vol. XXVII, pp.361-62).

Clear, one would think. But the question is: has the time already arrived to pass to the offensive, is the moment ripe for an offensive? Lenin said in another passage in the same year, 1922, that it was necessary to: "Link up with the peasant masses, with the rank-and-file toiling peasants, and begin to move forward immeasurably, infinitely, more slowly than we imagined, but in such a way that the entire mass will actually move forward with us" . . . that "if we do that we shall in time get such an acceleration of progress as we cannot dream of now". (Vol. XXVII, pp.231-32).

>By my analysis, democratic socialists’ economic policy proposals are compatible with Catholic social teaching. But each voter must judge with his or her own conscience, moved by the promises of Oslo or the warnings of Stalingrad.

But I do find it a bit ignorant, to name Stalingrad, as one of the great 'warnings' from the history of state socialism

Its probably a reference to socialism officially being constructed in 1936 with the new constitution. Up to then it was State Capitalist, not as a Trotskyist slur, but as a Leninist scientific honesty.

Its an interesting contrast with Red China, starting off at a much lower industrial base, in which the 1917-1936 period had its equivalent in "New Democracy" one of Mao's main theoretical contributions, but a very short historical phase. From 1949-1956, when with the completion of the First Five Year Plan, socialism was declared to have been reached in the main.

Well the NEP was initially meant as a primarily agrarian policy, so I suppose its full completion would be the full collectivization of agriculture.

The Communist bloc was locked in a Cold War with the Western world for much of the twentieth century. It's no surprise then that Western, and especially American, media tends to portray Communists as the baddies. Sometimes, however, fiction shows Communists in a more positive light - or at least, one more positive than that in which the Nazis will ever be portrayed (despite former Nazis similarly becoming American allies - and citizens! - during the Cold War). Maybe agents or soldiers from East and West have to team up to face a greater threat, collectively raising their Hammers and Sickles to defend their people rather than conquering others. Sometimes a non-Communist will find out that the Commies are Not So Different once they get to know them. And sometimes, Western media will simply show Communists to be genuinely decent people who happen to favour a different social and economic system.

Though obviously virtually nonexistent in the Cold War, this was the default portrayal of the Soviet Union during World War II, during which the United States, Britain, and the Soviet Union fought on the same side against Nazi Germany. American propaganda of the time heavily emphasized the "strong leadership" and "great industry" of the Soviet Union, while conveniently ignoring the atrocities committed by the Soviet leaders. As a result, many Americans and Brits who were critical of the Soviet Union—including George Orwell—found it impossible to get their work published because supporting the Soviet Union was seen as necessary for the war effort.

Note that this trope applies only to non-Communist media, since it's a given for works actually produced in Socialist countries. Also, when there's a political system involved and not just individual characters, the trope applies only if the system is portrayed positively. It can also apply to Communists who live in a non-Socialist country.

In the past, the method of planning was essentially learned from the Soviet Union and comparatively easy to do. First you determine how much steel is needed, then on this basis estimate how much coal, electricity, transport force, and so on are needed; and then based on these assumptions estimate the expected increase in urban population and the livelihood benefits. This is the method of using the calculator. Once the output of steel is reduced, all other items are correspondingly reduced. This kind of method is impractical and unworkable. This type of calculation cannot take into account what the Lord in Heaven will do to the plan. Suppose a natural disaster comes and you just won’t have such a quantity of foodgrains, support to the urban population cannot increase to the extent desired and then everything else comes to naught. Besides you cannot figure in what war will do. We are not the chief of staff of the U.S., so we don’t know when they will strike against us. Furthermore, revolutions in various countries cannot be figured into the plan. Suppose in some countries the people’s revolutions have succeeded and they need our economic assistance. How can this be foretold?